Backyard: Herb and Vegetable Garden 2010

Two weeks ago Nate and I were finally able to tackle the backyard - and all its problems. One of the basic changes we wanted to make between last year and this year's layout was the placement and shape of the herb garden. Last year I documented the building of the herb spiral. The spiral had a couple of faults that became apparent after two or three months of use:
1. We had placed the spiral in a part of the yard that was too shaded by the live oak. Most of the herbs planted never got enough sunlight and died after two months of struggling.
2. The plan to use straw instead of soil didn't work. This might be because we have both more rain and higher temperatures. With the exception of the rosemary, nothing planted in the spiral ever rooted well.
3. The squirrels that live in the live oak loved to eat the herbs - and there was no easy way to protect the plants from squirrel invasion.
4. We realized that the spiral was in the way. There's some, but not much, space between the back of the house and the fence. With that huge live oak centered between the two, there's even less walking space. And as Nate and I start figuring out the patio, we realized that the herb spiral would be in the way.

I had started thinking last year of doing something with the beautiful rocks from my parents' lot, a cascading river of herbs. Almost everything planted in the vegetable garden last year did really well, even though it was unusually hot and dry. Knowing that we were going to have to expand the vegetable garden, Nate and I figured that we should move the herb garden somewhere near. We settled on bricks rather than rocks, because we had the bricks from the herb spiral, and once we agreed on a basic shape, we started stacking our bricks on a piece of cardboard.



After a couple of layers of bricks, we started adding in some soil. Once we had a feel for the space with soil, we added another couple of brick layers.





Eventually we decided on three levels - one two bricks tall, one three, and one four bricks tall, with a back wall five bricks tall. We ended up needing more soil than we had anticipated, but are happy with the shape. There's an overall sloping to the structure, which we wanted since it rains so much we didn't want anything to get flooded (some of the plants on the lower level of the spiral got flooded).



We planted the herbs, from the top going down: basil, dill, sage, oregano, thyme, and mint. I'm leaving a little bit of room for something else, perhaps lavender.



The herbs two weeks later:



We only just started on the vegetate garden this weekend. We planted onions and peppers in the front left corner, two rows of okra in the back left corner, two tomato plants in the back right corner, and peas and jalapeno peppers in the front right, along with a pineapple sage that had survived three or four years now. It came back earlier this month almost without either of us realizing it. On Sunday we almost pull it out as we were pulling out weeds and picking up leaves until I broke off a bit and tasted it. I don't know why we haven't used this plant more often - the flavor is earthy but definitely sweet.

The garden layout:



No labels:







The remains of the herb spiral (and the enormous monster rosemary plant):

Shed

Back in January we constructed a shed in the backyard. We bought a vinyl one from Costco, and it's roughly 7.5' by 9.0' We had to make a pea-gravel foundation to raise the structure several inches above the grass; we had to make a foundation anyway, since the poured foundation that was in the backyard was not level and damaged. We built a wooden frame out of 2 x 4s and placed it on top of the bad foundation. Then we poured pea-gravel into the empty frame and leveled the whole.

Front of shed:



Side of shed:




Inside of shed:





Once we built the shed, we filled it with all the gardening supplies from the garage. We then cleaned out the garage and installed a tool bench, and a tool rack. Unfortuantely we forgot to take pictures during the construction process, but it was a fairly easy job.

The tool bench with miter saw and tool rack:







Having built a shed, we then started thinking about what would be the easiest way to mow around it. After talking with my mom we decided to build a "porch" in front of the doors, and then make a gravel bed all around the edges. The gravel bed is something we know we should have done before - it will better anchor the foundation by providing support from the outside to keep everything in place.

The porch part was a little time consuming. Nate killed most of the glass where we planned to lay the pavers two months ago with Roundup. Then we pulled away the dead grass and moved the dirt/mud around to make it angle away from the shed. Once that was close, we added some sand and placed the pavers. We worked on two pavers at a time, from one door to the edge, and then from the other door to the edge.

Dead grass:



Pavers set out on the grass:





Placing the pavers:





Leveling:







Aftwards we placed sand on the top and I swept it into the cracks. The sand was somewhat wet, and I've found that it needs a couple of applications to settle all the way between the cracks. We are happy with the result.









We still need to finish the edge next to the shed, and fill that with gravel. I'll add those pictures once we've finished the project.